Dr. Lenore Daniels, PhD

Racism is an event: someone calling a black the N-word or the sudden appearance of a noose at an office were a few blacks work. Racism is something that is perpetuated by racists. Everyone knows this! Every one! White supremacy then has nothing to do with the majority of good Americans, who are not offended by “black” music or who converse at lunchtime with a Latina co-worker or who accept the black daughter-in-law.

It was demanded of all white men to own firearms, to carry firearms, to patrol the “beat.” The “beat,” a night-time job, required men white men to apprehend “any and all Negroes who were not in their proper places.” If “free” or runaway, the person is “taken before a justice of the peace.”

the now of a Trump, announcing the death of the American dream. Don’t worry! America needs me to revive it. Me, the self-made billionaire. And by “American dream,” he means the latter version, the one in which it’s required of the nation and everyone in it to turn inward.

the story of these underage girls, women in their 20s and 30s now refuses to die behind a door of silence. The women decide to become audible, transgress the norm to remain representative of all that is “unspoken.”

What do the white students of Wisconsin learn about their responsibility toward ensuring social justice prevails as opposed to learning how to be competitive toward the racial other, exclude the racial other because all are “criminal,” a threat, until proven “dead” to resistance? What do these students learn and observe from friends and neighbors?

Americans in the United States have to be reminded that white supremacy is the foundational bedrock of this nation. In almost two years now, since Trump’s ascendancy to head entrepreneur of white supremacy, Americans (and the world) have listened to a barrage of racist language from the president and racists and their supporters who have been waiting for the lifting of restrictions on their right to speak openly about people of color.

The Station Agent shows us individuals who are not lonely people but rather individuals mature enough to be comfortable in the silence - how else to engage in contemplation? Self-reflection? The appreciation of silence is what each respects in the other, it’s what makes being in the company of each other special.

The media is still the “enemy of the people.” Today. No criticism of violent policies or violent regimes is acceptable! Beat journalists up or kill them. The killing of criticism directed at the powerful isn’t news in the world, particularly not news in the US.

I’m not comfortable agreeing with others who think women have come a distance since 1991. We live in a world where the young “nephews” are men like Ted Cruz, Stephen Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Brett Kavanaugh. Men in power. Men who take issue with women demanding to be recognized as human beings. Men for whom us people of color and our children need to be in the bedroom, behind walls, or bars.